High School Reunion vs. Family Reunion

The day after Mary McGlynn’s family reunion, August 4th., 2017, her high school class got together for their 50th. reunion at the McGlynn farm in Cazenovia, WI. I got to thinking about how these two reunions are similar, or different.

Weston High School 50 Year Reunion

Differences:

Age range. Family; 8 months to eighty-six years. High school; 68 years, plus or minus a year.

Hair color. Family; all over the map. High school; all gray or white, except when “enhanced.”

Kids. Family reunion; lots of kids running around. High school reunion; zero kids.

Future. In 20 years, the family will still be having reunions…

McGlynn Family Reunion

Similarities:

Controversy. Don’t talk about politics or religion.

Favorites. You like some people, others, not so much. (The ones you DO like tend to agree with you politically – though you aren’t supposed to talk about that.)

Haha! Yeah, the winters are cold but they’re cold in the cities too. What we’re talkng about here are not just farmers but Roman Catholics, farmers and non-farmers, in frigid Wisconsin before the mid-60’s (no pin intended). Among these folks starting about then, notwithstanding continuing bitterly cold winters, birthrates dropped because (1) violating church edicts against birth control started to become commonplace even among the otherwise faithful and (2) after the US Supreme Court’s Griswold decision in 1967, Wisconsin’s laws restricting availability of birth-control methods became unenforceable, much to the delight of pharmacies and their patrons.